


giving up the ghost

by ilgaksu



Series: the long way down [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Coming Out, Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 03:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10208615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: “We’re never coming back here,” Neil says decisively. He opens his mouth to say more, but Andrew squeezes his hand once, and Neil bites his lip and turns to stare out of the passenger window instead.“Sure,” Andrew replies. The drive is silent, Andrew with one hand on the wheel, half an eye on the unwinding road and how it opens something yawning up in his gut. He glances to Neil, struggling to keep awake, and thinkswe deserve better than running.(The National Association of Exy call for a conduct enquiry following Andrew's protest refusal to play in games.)





	

 

Andrew Minyard to Give Keynote at Lambda Legal Event 

**Cecil Stone**

 

Lambda Legal, the well-known legal organisation, announced today in a short press release that pro Exy player Andrew Minyard will be delivering the keynote speech at the first of their biannual Organisation Dinners. Minyard, 25, came out as gay in a press conference at the beginning of the last season quarter, making him the first professional-league male player in the history of the sport to do so. The decision to extend the keynote invitation to him has caused controversy - a word that has often and liberally been applied to Minyard’s career thus far. Opponents have cited Minyard’s lack of activism credentials and career choice, despite his ongoing dispute with the National Association of Exy, and are arguing Lambda Legal are capitalising on Minyard’s current media following. Lambda Legal cited Minyard’s college thesis as part of their reasoning for their decision. Minyard graduated Palmetto State University last year with a degree in Criminal Justice. He was salutatorian. Minyard was contacted for comment, but did not respond. However, rumours that he has waived the traditional fee, asking instead for it to be donated to charity, have been confirmed by both Pride Sports and the South Carolina Homeless LGBT Youth Network.... _Read more._  

**_4567 comments_ **

 

_Opinion:_ Minyard’s ongoing battle with the NAE is an embarrassment to the sport 

**Jacinda Ortega y Nunez**

 

_Pictured: Andrew Minyard, 25, of the New York Rebels, arriving at the National Association of Exy enquiry into his potential misconduct. The enquiry begins today._

 

In 2003, New York’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) took effect. It’s the 21st century, and the last black sheep of Exy is a gay man. In a conduct enquiry that is likely to end in a six-month suspension for Andrew Minyard, in a country with a lack of anti-discrimination employment law at the federal level, our reporter asks: at what point is enough enough? _Read more._

**_2097 comments_ **

 

Sports Daily Rounds Up The Gossip: _who’s managed own goal of the week?_ ****

**Hailey Lowe Castaneda**

 

.....drama on the dancefloor last night at a certain sporting association's annual banquet when a recently controversial player stepped out with his partner of choice. Guests seemed to think this particular misstep - not the first in his first year - seriously out of place, given current PR advice to the player to lie low and keep all his skeletons firmly _in_ the closet.

 

_HollabackGirl89:_ ok but we all know who this is right??? come on, there's only one player in the national division rn. it's not fun when we all know it's minyard

 

_JJAtlanta:_ "controversial" like that isn't minyard's middle name

 

_bitchoutofcarolina:_ talk abt get ur head in the game already

 

_This comment has been removed for_ _violating user guidelines._

 

_This comment has been removed for_ _violating user guidelines._

 

_This comment has been removed for_ _violating user guidelines._

**_More comments below...._ **

 

*

“Anything you want to talk about?” Neil says, the second he can, pulling out of a kiss and watching Andrew get his breath back. His body is a warm and familiar anchor against Andrew’s, the taste of him familiar in Andrew’s mouth; he sits back up, hands on Andrew’s chest, straddling his lap. Smirks, wide and mean and at odds with how sweet-eyed he is, when he feels the way Andrew shivers.  

“What makes you think I want to talk to you?” Andrew says, dry. He narrows his eyes

He knows what this is about. He’d heard Neil on the phone the other day, and the faint, harried anxiety underlying his voice was enough to make Andrew lose focus on his book and pay attention instead to how Neil said, “I don’t know what’s enough, Renee. I need to do enough for him.” _Pay attention:_ like Andrew’s looked away once since he had Neil in his arms in a shitty hotel room in Binghampton. _I need:_ like air, like water, like Neil’s mouth against Andrew’s throat, voice a chanting thread, voice about to snap. _Andrew, I need -_

“Stop having mother’s meetings with Renee,” Andrew says now, “I’m talking. I have Bee. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Andrew sees a flash of hurt in Neil’s bleeding heart eyes and feels it echo in his own chest, tells himself this new minor wound is nothing. Tells himself he’s an easy target right now, softened by the memory of how Neil’s hipbones fit in his hands. Tells himself it’s anything but affinity.  Neil rolls off Andrew, huffily, his movements jerky like something under his skin stings, leaning over the edge of the bed for his shirt. Andrew hauls him back with an arm slung over his chest. Neil makes an annoyed noise, like one of the cats having been stepped on, but goes with it. Neil shifts as though to turn and face him, but Andrew tightens his hold, leans his forehead against the dip between Neil’s shoulder blades. For a long time, when he was talking to Bee, he’d look at the wall. It made it easier.

“Everyone out there keeps wanting me to talk,” Andrew says slowly, testing the words out, a leaden weight on his tongue. “But I don’t have to talk to you. I don’t want to have to talk to you.”  

“Okay,” Neil says. The quieter he gets, the more hesitant he is. His voice is halfway to being gone. Andrew grits his teeth.

“I need this,” he says, almost spitting out the truth of it, something low and dragged out of his chest, something bloody and uncertain in their bed. In human sacrifice, why is it always - one way or another - a still-beating heart in someone else’s hands?  

He feels Neil go still in his arms, his spine aligned to Andrew’s breastbone. They fit together like a way for a god to disprove an atheist, the seamlessness of them deceptive like beach glass; something hard-won over years.

“I’m going to turn around,” Neil says. He sounds like he’s smiling. “And then I’m going to kiss you.”

“Do what you like,” Andrew retorts, and then, “Yes.”

He lets Neil get away with too much these days, Andrew thinks, as he opens under Neil’s mouth, his hand covering the fragile nape of Neil’s neck. When Neil traces a heart, lopsided and sweat-sticky, into the hollow of Andrew’s hip, Andrew bites his lip in retaliation, but doesn’t bat his hand away.

“You’re so fucking spoilt,” Andrew says, twenty-five and enamoured, twenty-five and high off how when he presses his fingertips into the new bruises on Neil’s thighs he shudders so hard the bed shakes with it. “You’re such a fucking brat.”

“Your fault,” Neil whispers against his lips, eyes and mouth shining. “All your fault.”

 

*

PRES.: Can you describe your actions on the 16th October of last year?

MINYARD: Are you asking me to recount the whole day, or the part of it you disliked?

PRES.: May I remind you that you are here today for an enquiry into your conduct, not the Association’s?

MINYARD: I am very aware of where I am.

PRES.: Are you refusing to answer the question?

MINYARD: I’m waiting for clarification.

PRES.: Fine. Are you suggesting your actions during the New York Rebels vs. the Washington Enforcers match were not premeditated?

MINYARD: Yes and no.

PRES.: Can you clarify, please?

MINYARD: They were not premeditated in that I had not predicted the Washington Enforcers’ current fanbase specifically would be -

COACH L.: Andrew, please.

MINYARD: They were premeditated insofar as I would be an exceptionally stupid man to not consider all of the repercussions to my sexuality being made public.

PRES.: And yet you still decided to.

MINYARD: I did.

PRES.: So surely, it could be argued that you expected some kind of negative response?

MINYARD: Madame President, it would be nice not to be continually disappointed by the world we live in. As it would be nice not to be continually disappointed by this enquiry.

PRES.: It would also be nice to see some expression that you see this enquiry as something more than a joke, Mr. Minyard. Given your potential suspension.  

MINYARD: I’m sure it would be.

PRES.: Given you agreed to subscribe to its regulations when you signed your contract with the Rebels, I can’t help but wonder what you think of this Association, given your -

MINYARD: I am fully aware of the regulations I signed to.

PRES.: If I could finish -

MINYARD: We both seem to be wondering where I broke them. As we both also seem to be aware I didn’t, I don’t see how my opinion of the Association is relevant.

PRES.: The more you talk, Mr. Minyard, I wonder if you don’t see yourself as above this Association.

MINYARD: I see my self-preservation as above this Association.  

_Extract from NAE Conduct Enquiry #4529 into A.J. Minyard, 25/2/11_

*

It happens like this:

“They’re calling for an enquiry,” Andrew’s manager, a tall, sharp-faced woman called Helen tells the team during the week’s briefing. “Andrew agreed you should be told now rather than later.”

Andrew ignores the way the rest of the Rebels swing, eerie in synchronicity outside of a court, to gape at him. He stares at the wall.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Pierce finally manages, through the haze of a January win hangover and his own heterosexuality.

“No, you’re right,” Andrew drawls. “Happy April Fool’s.”

“Unfortunately, they’re very serious,” Helen says, “Andrew has to appear at the end of February. I imagine the press will get wind of it this week. We’ll be making a team statement on Tuesday.”

Thirty and prematurely grey since twenty one, she brushes several long silvery strands back over her shoulders, exposing a long scar along her neck. It was what had made Andrew trust her in the first place, when she stood in the dying light of a Manhattan evening; watching him trade in eighteen months of his life for a salary and a shot at something else than apathy.

“Let me make this clear,” she continues, her voice frost. “This team will be presenting a united front against the fuckers at Fox News. You want to bitch and kvetch about Minyard, do it in your own homes with the doors and windows shut. If I catch a single one of you breathing too loud about this into a single reporter’s microphone, I’ll hang your skin up to fucking dry.” She smiles, thin and humourless. “Any questions?”

“Can they even do this?”

Andrew snorts loudly and folds his arms.

“One of the current sitting Board members at the Association is an alumni of Edgar Allan University,” Helen explains. “It would appear, given the bad blood between Andrew’s alma mater and theirs -”

“Yeah, but can they do this?” Shearer persists, leaning forwards, face the sort of noxious mix of confusion and concern that makes Andrew’s stomach twist. “Surely they can’t?”

“Open a history book sometime,” Andrew says, and it comes out more staccato than he expected. He feels their eyes snap to him. The paint on the wall is chipped, and the light dapples across it, strange and uneven. "This isn't anything new." 

 

*

“You’re going to fight them, right?”

Kevin’s eyes are very wide. Where other people would see them as shiny with zealotry, Andrew - who knows Kevin too well -  can see the sheen of fear, sticky and cloying, underneath. Andrew has always been able to get under Kevin’s skin, has always been able to see beyond that first permeable layer to the shiver of vulnerable meat underneath. Neil may have been a butcher’s son, but Andrew knows the art of drawing blood better, hands steady where Neil doesn’t have the stomach for it.

“I hope you didn’t travel all the way from Michigan to ask the obvious,” Andrew retorts, voice slow and even. That he’s aware of it as a conscious effort around Kevin some days now is a progression of sorts. Small annoyances; scratches on an old vinyl making the needle skip, the buzz of static where once there was an endless repeat of smooth apathy.

“You have to fight them,” Kevin insists. He reaches out towards Andrew without connecting. It’s almost as though Kevin’s begun to learn from his own mistakes. Almost. Andrew, who has never had to do anything - or rather, who has had and will never again on anything but his own terms - turns and walks back onto the court without replying, leaving Kevin a pillar of dark hair and cheekbones in the stands. The glare of his tattoo, black-inked against white, shines like a bruise in the fluorescent lights.

 

(It reminds Andrew of Neil in his bed, squabbling, the shine of his eyes in the dark:

“Exy,” Neil says in Andrew’s memory, flopping backwards, the sprawl of his limbs indolent, all borrowed arrogance that sets Andrew’s teeth on edge, sets them to the ridge of Neil’s collarbone. “I’m picking Exy.”

He curls his hand around the back of Andrew’s head, twisting his fingers into the short hairs at the nape of Andrew’s neck.

“No,” Andrew replies. That’s not the point of a safe word. “Something that doesn’t turn you on, Neil.”

The slide of Neil’s mouth is mean when he smiles at Andrew, all teeth like victory.

“Don’t say ‘Kevin’, then. It can’t be something that turns _you_ on, either.”)  

 

Andrew takes his place in the goal, ignoring Anita’s stare. He’s ignoring all of their stares, letting their eyes and how their expressions slide through a spectrum - rabbit to rabid - slide through him in turn. Harmless; untouchable; two sides of the same coin.

“Break’s over,” Andrew points out. His deliberately pitched monotone jolts them out of it.

“Isn’t that -” Cooper turns back towards the stands, disbelief in the stretch of her shoulders. “That’s Kevin Day.”

“Yes,” Andrew confirms tonelessly.

“And you’re,” Cooper almost stammers, then recovers, “And you’re - you’re over here?”

“Again,” Andrew confirms, much slower this time, “Yes.” He looks towards Kevin and salutes him, sweeping and lazy. Kevin throws himself into one of the seats, putting his feet up on the seat in front. “He’ll wait.”

_On my terms, or not at all._

Andrew plays with vicious satisfaction for the remaining two hours, then takes his sweet time changing out: by the time he makes it out to the court’s foyer, Kevin is surrounded by a fresh set of Andrew’s-teammates-turned-courtiers. Kevin’s press-and-strangers smile isn’t getting any better with the years. Andrew disregards them all, walking past Kevin to where a tall man slouches with his son’s dark eyes and none of his tempered-steel posture. (Tempered, of course, is a nicer way of saying beaten.)

“Coach,” Andrew says. _David_ is a foreign entity.

“Minyard,” Wymack replies.

“Getting too quiet for you down South?”

“With your boy on the team?” Wymack retorts. “Not even close.” He eyes Andrew, careful without being hesitant, shifts his hands to his hips. The black ink on his arms ripples in the strip lighting and Wymack says, “Are you going to need him soon?”

“Like a hole in the head,” Andrew replies. He realises he feels the nearest he has to smirking at someone in about four days, so he does.

“Don’t give me that shit, Minyard.” Wymack’s mouth is unimpressed and final as a flatline. “We’re not having a heart-to-heart here, God knows, but -”

“Are we not?” Andrew drawls. “You’ve got to stop getting my hopes up.”

“Jesus, Andrew.” Wymack sounds disgusted. “This isn’t the fucking Lifetime channel.”

“No, Coach,” Andrew deadpans, “It’s just my life.”

“See this -” Wymack points at him. “This is why I’m letting Neil come by during your enquiry.” The words register with Andrew, even in a conversation so mired in familiarity Andrew could still be eighteen, listening to Wymack swearing, bloody in Andrew’s corner. They leave him feeling blank with surprise. Wymack takes in his non-expression with a satisfied grimace. “Reap what you sow, you little shit. Somebody’s got to make sure you don’t roll around in the gasoline for the Association’s fire show.”

“I thought you were his babysitter now.”

It takes Andrew a moment to separate out the sudden wash of emotion - the sickly gravity of it both alien and familiar from memories of the last four years on loop. It’s longing.

“Good luck trying to keep him from camping out on your doorstep,” Wymack is saying now. “Send him back once you’re done. We need him to win.” Wymack’s eyes are very dark and steady on Andrew when he adds, “You’re not my problem anymore, but he is.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“Save it for your boyfriend.”  

“If you’d known,” Andrew asks him, “Would you have bothered?” and then snaps his jaw shut before he lets anything else out. For a long moment, Wymack merely stares at him.

“Thirteen goals out of one hundred fifty,” Wymack tells him quietly.

“I remember,” Andrew tells him back. “I was there.”

“Then shut up, Minyard,” Wymack replies, “And stop asking me fucking stupid questions.”

“It’s only a stupid question if you’re on the other side of it.”

Seeing Wymack’s face twist a little with understanding isn’t as satisfying as it should be.

“Don’t let them set you on fire,” Wymack says. The abrupt ferocity of his voice has Andrew falling back whole years, to Wymack saying _this is the moment you stop being the rabbit,_ only it turns out after that moment, there’s another, and then another and another - a constant unspooling of tiny braveries. It makes Andrew feel tired, but the sort of tired when there’s a minute and a breath to the buzzer, the knowledge they’ll win if they can just make it: that all Andrew has to do is hold the line for them.

Andrew says, “I’ll try my best, Coach.”

 

*

Neil sits up in the hotel bed, rumpled and soft-eyed, the look in them gradually hardening as he watches Andrew dress in the best business casual a monochrome taste could offer.

“Don’t say something stupid,” Andrew says, surprising himself with how weary he sounds. In the mirror, there are faint dark circles under his eyes, purplish-grey like the cigarette smoke Andrew had inhaled all night out on the balcony whilst Neil, drowsy with affection, leant against his shoulder silently. There’s a bitemark livid like appleskin over Neil’s collarbone. It winks in the light, a distraction when he stretches, arms over his head, and watches Andrew carefully.

“I can drive in with you,” Neil offers. “Yes or no?”

“They won’t let you through the door,” Andrew warns. He shrugs his jacket on and meets Neil’s eyes in the mirror’s reflection, reaches out towards the way Neil’s frown presses itself into his face. Catches himself before his fingertips touch glass.

“That’s not what I asked, Andrew.” Neil sounds snippy as usual. It settles Andrew like nicotine. When Andrew opens his mouth, Neil beats him to it. Story of a lifetime. “I’ll call a taxi. You’re not losing me in the middle of fucking Arkansas.”

“That’s not how you say Arkansas,” Andrew corrects him. Neil flips him off, slipping out of the bed and heading towards the shower, the drift of him a warm shadow at Andrew’s back. “And I didn’t say yes yet.”

“Then say it or don’t,” Neil says, simple as that. “Either way, I’m taking a shower.”

“I’m leaving in twenty minutes,” Andrew tells him, and Neil yells through the bathroom door, “Meet you in the car, then. If you bring coffee, I’ll kiss you.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to kiss me,” Andrew retorts, and Neil opens the door, releasing a shiver of steam, to give Andrew an eloquent look.  

“Yes,” Andrew says finally, and Neil nods once, sharp, and shuts the door in his face.

Andrew gets two vanilla lattes, extra syrup, just for the enjoyment of watching Neil’s nose wrinkle in displeasure when he sips his.

“I take it back,” Neil mutters, “I should’ve specified terms.”

“A deal is a deal, Josten,” Andrew reminds him, and Neil sighs pointedly into the kiss before leaning back, still sleepy-eyed, wearing Andrew’s leather jacket. Andrew pretends not to watch Neil out of the corner of his eyes as he reverses out of the lot; how Neil chews absently at his thumbnail, staring dead ahead and a little blank, until Andrew leans over and takes his hand away from his mouth.

The sky is very blue in Arkansas, the sun high and pale. Andrew turns onto the highway, and Neil does something, some kind of sleight-of-hand, and laces their fingers together.

“We’re never coming back here,” Neil says decisively. He opens his mouth to say more, but Andrew squeezes his hand once, and Neil bites his lip and turns to stare out of the passenger window instead.

“Sure,” Andrew replies. The drive is silent, Andrew with one hand on the wheel, half an eye on the unwinding road and how it opens something yawning up in his gut. He glances to Neil, struggling to keep awake, and thinks _we deserve better than running._

When he turns into the Association’s parking lot, the place is already crowded. Knowing why makes Andrew park the car with a little more force than necessary, jolting Neil fully awake again. He blinks, a little bleary, at their surroundings. Andrew sees the moment he realises where they are, because his face stops just shy of Nathaniel. It hesitates there for a second, wavering, before falling away again. Andrew unclips his seatbelt, leans across the car, and hugs him. He feels the faint startle of it tremor through Neil, but when he moves to lean back Neil wraps his free arm around Andrew. His hand splays wide against Andrew’s shoulder blade, locking Andrew into place. Andrew drops his forehead to Neil’s shoulder, counts to ten, and breathes him in; the familiar scent of his skin and the aftershave Andrew bought him two years back.

And Andrew knows resilience like he knows his own fucking name. He knows the mechanisms of it. You can crawl through glass as long as you know there’s something on the other side of it.  

“See you tonight, Neil,” he murmurs, voice low, because if he says thank you Neil won’t listen and if he says anything else it’ll be too much for the both of them. He gives himself another moment and pulls back, firmly, until Neil’s hand drops from his back. Neil smiles at him, quick and sly. Andrew knows the pains of a perfect memory, but he’ll take it for the way Neil’s eyes look crisp in the sunlight.

_I can do this,_ Andrew thinks. _I’m going to be fine._

Neil brings their joined hands up to his mouth, kisses the back of Andrew’s hand without looking away from Andrew’s eyes, and then lets go.

“See you tonight,” he echoes, and gets out of the car. Andrew feels the fierce ache of it in his own chest, punctuated by the sound of the car door closing. He sits there for another minute, then cuts the engine, gets out and heads into the foyer. There’s only a few reporters here, die-hards from the Exy circuit, and nothing they can say will make him look at them.

He’s Andrew Minyard. He’s fucking untouchable.  

Helen is there, impeccable in the midst of the marble and neutral paintwork, her annoyance set like concrete. Neil likes her, Andrew remembers, and almost smirks.

“Ready to go?” she says.

Andrew shrugs.

“Close enough,” he tells her.


End file.
